Hanwell Health Centre Expands

A project to extend Hanwell Health Centre has come to an end following a 16 month project.

The current GP’s practice in Hanwell, London has undergone an extensive renovation which will see the premises acting as a multi-purpose space in the future.

Work on site began in the summer of 2012 and was completed by December 2013. Premier Construction caught up with Paul Cooper, Director of PR Cooper Builders the principal contractors on the project, to find out more about the development.

PR Cooper Builders became involved in the project due to their contact at Prestige Insulation; Eddie Dowell. Prestige have done a lot of small refurbishment works on the property previously and advised PR Cooper Builders to meet the owner and tender for the works.

Paul said:

“We won the tender for the project and scoped out the works for Dr Nash, the owner who is also a GP at Hanwell Health Centre, and he was impressed with our plans. Architectural company Paul Twyman got the plans passed initially and we then employed Ktech to update the drawings for the construction phase.

“As the principal contractor we did the demolition work, structural elements and general building works. The building spans three storeys; the first floor extension we built will now be taken over by the Cuckoo Lane Health Practice. We have also added a large extension on the second floor; there are now three big spaces up there which could be used as offices or for domestic purposes. On the ground floor which is inhabited by Hanwell Health Centre we did not do as much work, we simply adding a new entrance and new frontage to the stairwell.”

The first floor new extension area was constructed on the right hand side of the building. The existing left hand side of the ground floor is the dental area which has remained unchanged, including the space’s offices and the central chill out zone for the staff.

The team carried out some internal layout alterations on the ground floor, including changing the location of the floors stairwell. On the buildings front elevation the team totally reformed the front entrance and installed a lift leading to the second floor. The lift shaft had to be underpinned which was a large, complicated job for the on site team which had to be handled with the utmost caution.

The building’s plant room on the second floor, containing the property’s boiler and electrical services, was demolished and relocated to the ground floor. The room was stripped out and demolished which was a difficult task as the room was all concrete; the team had to use specialist equipment to mechanically break the concrete.

The main issue PR Cooper Builders encountered was working on site whilst Hanwell Health Centre was still operational. It was essential that the noise level remained relatively low so as not to distract the doctors but trying to break concrete quietly proved difficult.

Paul added:

“We had to schedule the high noise work to weekends so as to avoid distracting the doctors. We took out the front stairwell and it had to be crunched out so there were four days of unavoidable heavy noise. A lot of the electrical work was done in the Easter when the building was closed.”

Paul expresses his gratitude to all the workers involved who helped him achieve a great result on this project:

“I’m really grateful to all the people that have been involved and am pleased to have taken on and completed a project of this size and nature. It is bigger than anything PR Cooper Builders has taken on before and being involved means I now have a lot of confidence about the work elements we can take on in the future.”

Property owner, Dr Ric Naish, said:

“I would like to say how satisfied I am with all the contactors’ input and appreciate how difficult it was to complete this work without stopping the medical work, which could not possibly stop.”

SHM Electrical Services Installed all the supply cables in the lifts at Hanwell Health centre as well as the fitting cables in the new installations and new extension areas. The team also installed a new fire alarm system as well.

Managing Director of the firm Stuart McCrerie said:

“We specialise in domestic and commercial electrical installations and were pleased to be involved in the Hanwell Health Centre project. It was a good team of tradesmen working on the job and everyone bonded and worked well together.”